


Poisoned Apple

by RicketyBones



Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Gods & Goddesses, Fluff and Angst, Forests, Future, Happy Ending, Immortality, M/M, One Shot, set on the smp post prison
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-24
Updated: 2021-02-24
Packaged: 2021-03-15 13:54:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29684982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RicketyBones/pseuds/RicketyBones
Summary: Somehow, after years of solitude, Dream leaves the prison and is met with an empty world. He seeks out George in the forest, but the man he finds is not the one he remembers.-“You’ve gone mad,” Dream says, deflecting his own insanity away with practised precision. The walls around his heart had long been put to use, but he feels them begin to manifest once again. He brings his hands up to rub his face, cleanse his eyes, and sighs.“I’m not the one talking to a tree.”
Relationships: Clay | Dream/GeorgeNotFound (Video Blogging RPF)
Kudos: 67





	Poisoned Apple

**Author's Note:**

> This is set post-prison and in the far future. Written before Tommy's recent visit, I just got lazy and didn't post it, so let's pretend that didn't happen.

False guardians line the impenetrable fortress. Green needles whisper tales of great affliction, warning curious eyes to heed and turn back. It’s nothing but a vain deterrent remaining from times past, for there is nowhere to return. The forest will show no mercy, but neither will the world beyond. Exposed roots cement into sand and silt, a promise of permanency and of envelopment. Despite all the ruin, the trees remain untouched.

 _Touch me, feel my pain_.

A hand reaches out and meets the leaves. Illusion collapses as danger becomes a pretence. Too blunt to cause any real harm, too beautiful. Dewy droplets fall and meet skin, causing a shiver to crawl up the arms and wrap around the nape. A reminder of a reality long forgotten, when life was not yet a luxury, but a malleable force to fulfil desires.

_You don’t belong here._

He steps forward, penetrating the evergreen, down the rabbit hole. An unwelcoming silence comes to challenge him. It’s unnatural, only intensifying the falsehood of the forest. Sunlight spills in from where he had stood, but the barricade of trees halts it in its place. He shudders once more as heat disperses. It had been his oppressor, his comfort for so long. He yearns for its reassurance, almost turns around. No, he will not give the forest what it desires. Instead, he eyes the way ahead, seeing no path, no guidance, only onwards. This is a journey to be taken alone.

_Fire is not welcome here._

The wind traces a dainty finger down his spine. All around, deciduous trees replace the evergreen guards as leaves fade into obscurity. Green becomes brown and sunlight dissipates as night draws in. The thicket extends its talons, drawing thin crimson lines across his stretches of exposed skin. Silence is only broken for cracking bones against the forest floor and, with every step, gasps of pain whistle in his ears. The trees cast scornful eyes on the lion below.

“I am your god,” he scowls at the highest branches, pressing forward deeper into the undergrowth.

Above him, stars reluctantly become dawn as if reacting to his words. White flowers sprout in clusters in the green. He takes no care to avoid them, but still manages to leave them all unharmed. Pink blossom kisses the tips of the trees and stray petals mimic snow as they settle in his path. The chill fades away and a familiar warmth beams down on him. There is greater reality in a lucid dream.

He smiles mightily as the forest remembers its rightful place. They are his creation, his domain.

“Hello, Dream,” the trees call from above.

Dream’s smile falls away as he draws his eyes away from the forest floor. He lets his gaze settle at the treetops, where the sun is now spilling fruit between the clusters of green leaves and sees a figure sitting high up in the branches. It takes a moment for Dream’s eyes to adjust to the light and he realises it wasn’t the trees calling his name, it was George.

He wants to chastise himself for not recognising his lover’s voice, but the man in the branches is dangerously out of place. He had spent years of wishing for their reunion, it had been his driving force for so long, but never once had he pictured this. There’s no smile on his face as he looks up in apprehension for what is to come.

George smiles down at him daringly. He tosses a bright red apple in the air, the repetitive slapping sound it makes as it collides with his palm reminding Dream of –

_Tick._

_Tick._

_Ti–_

“You’re awake,” Dream finds himself saying, curiosity coating his words, as he tries to draw his mind away from the noise. Eternity lies between them and their last meeting and he cannot muster as much as a hello.

The smile falls from George’s face. He catches the apple for a final time and holds it out in front of him. Peaking out from behind the red, Dream can see his eyes and the daggers he shoots from them.

“You were wrong,” George spits. He turns the apple in his hand, to reveal a missing piece, freshly bitten off. As he does, the leaves closest to him begin to turn brown, skipping over autumnal yellows and becoming frail. “There’s no such thing as a true love’s kiss.”

Dream furrows his eyebrows, but not in confusion. George’s anger sparks his own, long repressed. His blood boils deep in his core, pulsing out to the tips of his fingers. Resentment he had never once held for George begins to manifest on his tongue, “I don’t know what –”

“Snow White was awoken when a servant tripped and dislodged the apple from her throat,” George explains, dryly. In his hand, the apple rots, turning a murky brown to match the leaves around him. “Not a kiss from the Prince,” he continues, gesturing at Dream, “A servant’s mistake.”

All those years ago, when Dream had let his last ounces of joy slip through his fingers, he had used a cheap trick to keep George at bay – an eternal sleep to protect and to hide him. He was never supposed to find out, Dream had intended on waking him as if nothing had happened, but somehow here George sits, awake and with a glint of something he cannot quite place in his eye.

He wants to ask how any of this is possible, but suddenly, George rolls backward off the branch and instead Dream finds himself gasping and lurching forward. Evil was a curse of his being, but he could never earnestly hate George, or wish any real harm upon him. He’s too far away to offer any real help, at most he could launch himself against the dirt to soften to blow, so he stops just short of trying. Revival would be an easier task.

But George does not crash into the forest floor. Instead, he lands impossibly upright, apple nowhere to be seen, smug look plastered across his face. Dream gawks at him, as George takes a step forward and nears the gap between them.

Dream can finally inspect his love up close, his magnum opus, forged from the very soil they stand on, a man frozen in time. Dark hair to match the forest floor neatly curls atop a porcelain face adorned with earthy freckles. They appear more pronounced in the forest, or has the memory of them faded too? His gaze settles finally, and faded green meets deep brown, too dark for even the trees to compete with.

“You promised to return to me,” George says finally, words blending into the gentle gust that surrounds them.

Dream tears his eyes away in shame. He still remembers his last words to George as vividly as if they were yesterday, when he had handed him a freshly plucked apple and watched as lethargy wrapped its reassuring arms around him. He opens his mouth to speak, but a chill breeze coats his face and halts his words. Even now, even after all this time, he cannot bring himself to apologise.

Another step is taken forward and Dream raises his glance once more. George gives him a curious look and, despite their closeness, doesn’t smile. Dream finds himself raising a hand and lightly resting it upon George’s elegant face. Slender fingers trace gentle lines across chiselled cheeks, as they had the day they were sculpted. He hums to himself in satisfaction as he does, the missing puzzle piece of his existence finally falling into place.

“I’m here, aren’t I?” Dream replies, his old power returning to his words, as if the world has finally been put to right.

“Yes,” George replies after a moment of silent contemplation, “I suppose you are.” He smiles at Dream, finally.

Though neither of them tear their eyes away to notice, around them the leaves turn green once again. The forest feeds off their connection and amplifies itself. Birdsong rings high above the silence for the first time since Dream had crossed the forest boundary, and in the distance, a badger cub coos.

“How long?” Dream asks eventually, unsure of what else to say.

George looks down at the moss spreading across his forearms as an answer. Dream sighs as his eyes follow and he notices how George’s fingertips are cracked like tree bark. When he looks back up, he catches sight of small, gilded leaves pressed between strands of his hair. The contrast causes him to flinch, how could he have missed them?

Dream’s hand is left momentarily suspended as George takes a step back. “Walk with me,” he says, turning on his heel and making his way deeper into the forest.

It takes a second before his brain catches up but Dream soon proceeds in toe. “Where are we going?” he asks but receives no sign of acknowledgement in return.

They walk in silence, the forest infinitely unfolding like an intricate piece of origami, until they hit a creek. Crystal clear waters coat grey rocks, leaving them shimmering in the afternoon light and vegetation lines the banks on either side. Ahead, George gently parts the shrubbery to create an opening, crouches down and dips a palm into the stream, ducking his head to drink.

Dream gives him a curious glance, wants to explain if George followed him back, they could find somewhere safer to drink, but finds himself suddenly silenced. The melodic trickle of the water stops sounding as such and begins to grow a pattern in his ears. The forest melts away, leaving only the stream and the sound of water against rock.

_Drip._

_Drip._

_Tick._

“Stop it!” His voice harshly cuts through the noise as his hands fly to his ears, letting the water fade away.

George stands and abruptly turns, expression of concern flashing across his face. Dream stares blindly as he moves towards him and rests a hand on Dream’s arm, coaxing it away from his ear. Dream blinks as the world comes rushing back: rustling leaves, chirping birds, whistling breeze.

He tears his eyes from George and looks towards the creek. At first glance, it appears untouched, even the parted leaves had suffered no permanent damage. Dream pushes his body away from George and storms over to the bank with disbelief. The rocks still glisten, the water remains clear, but everything is still. No noise engulfs his senses, for none is produced. A stream frozen in time.

Dream turns around. His eyes narrow as he stares down George and his mind races to comprehend. Inside his chest, feelings of betrayal stir, long buried by hunger and pain. George, his George, gives a warm smile. No longer his George, no longer George at all, synonymous with the forest.

“You’ve gone mad,” Dream says, deflecting his own insanity away with practised precision. The walls around his heart had long been put to use, but he feels them begin to manifest once again. He brings his hands up to rub his face, cleanse his eyes, and sighs.

“I’m not the one talking to a tree.”

Dream opens his mouth to question George but is stopped in his tracks as he removes his hands to reveal nobody ahead of him. He turns his head, frantically searching for George, but finds he is alone.

“George!” he yells at nothing, at everything, helplessly powerless.

He feels a hand on his shoulder, and he reels around, lifting a fist to roughly grab at George’s collar. George lets him, standing stoic and unflinching. As Dream stares him down, he deciphers the glint that seems ever present in his eyes, recognising it from his own reflection from many years ago. Power.

“Are you quite finished?” George responds, disinterested at Dream’s sudden outburst.

Dream drops his hand away from George as betrayal seeps into his bones. He had always had the upper hand, even after his imprisonment, he had always been two steps ahead. But now, ahead of him, George is outrightly pushing back against his tyranny. His most cherished creation, the only person he has ever truly loved, disrespecting him.

He stalks away into the trees, not turning his head back. Around him, the trees begin to react as leaves fall and disintegrate and bare twigs are left, harshly glinting in the winter sun as frost wraps them in its grasp. Once again, Dream grows uncomfortably cold as goosebumps rise and hair stands on end. He tries to shake it off, keep walking to the next season, but his breath begins to vaporise before his eyes, and he can’t help than to feel alone.

Dream halts, unsurety coursing through his veins. He wants to turn back to George, the one comfort he has left, but a stubborn force keeps his feet rooted to the soil. The unfamiliarity of losing his absolute power stirs fury deep inside of him and he realises he is alone.

Alone, without George to comfort him. Alone, a stranger in his own body. Alone, in an empty world. Around him, the forest begins to whirl around him as his world turns upside down. The trees become a blur as they wrap around his vision and the wind crawls under his skin, sending the chill deep into his bones. His chest grows heavy as he struggles to ground himself, unable to feel his feet in the soil. His words are stolen from his lips as he tries to call out once more and his throat dries, just as it had been for all those years in confinement.

All of a sudden, it stops, and Dream doesn’t need to turn his head to know why. Leaves grow back tentatively, skipping the beauty of spring blossom and settling green, but the air stays chilling.

Perhaps he had succeeded to call out after all because he hears steady footsteps approaching from behind.

“The trees don’t like you,” George says, softened words cutting through the harsh winter air.

Dream turns his head and shoots an angry glare behind him. “You think I don’t know that?”

“No, but you don’t understand it,” George continues, drawing closer. A smug smile spreads across his face, but his voice remains low. “You’re losing power all over again and you don’t know why.”

He isn’t wrong, Dream knows, but he refuses to let it show on his face.

George sighs against the silence. “When you created the forest that day, you were still air,” he explains, taking another step towards Dream. He stops for a moment of consideration. “Or, at least, you weren’t wholly fire yet,” All traces of possible mockery leave his voice as he finishes, and his voice returns to silk in Dream’s ears. “But now, you’ve lived under Leo for so long, the trees think you’re dangerous.”

Dream looks up at the sky, where the stars are hiding behind the daylight. He imagines where Libra may be and traces his eyes across to where the lion is sleeping. “So, they turned to you,” he says, understanding, voice coming out as a whisper.

George nods, “Water.”

Dream furrows his eyebrows as he tears his eyes away from the sky and looks at George, beautiful in the daylight. He huffs as he comes to realise he is not longer the god he once was, forever doomed to be a man.

“If the forest isn’t mine anymore,” he asks finally, thinking back to when he had entered through the trees and told them to back down. “Then why did it answer my command?”

George smiles with a mixture of pity and concern, “It didn’t”

Dream had never considered the fact he was being watched.

“I was waiting, the trees told me you were coming.” George says, answering his suspicion. “Their hatred for you runs deeper than fire.” Dream narrows his eyes to prompt George to elaborate. “When you became the lion, you told everyone that they could no longer form attachments. Only, to take back your power, you had to sever your own attachments and we both know there have only been two things you have ever loved, Dream.”

George looks at Dream expectantly.

“You, and the world.” His two creations.

“Exactly,” George confirms, nodding. “So, you took the world at the very core of its being and locked me within it.” _Both of his secrets folded into one_. “And the forest resents you for it.”

“And you don’t?” Dream queries, scared for the answer.

George’s face falls solemn as he honestly answers, “I couldn’t bring myself to hate you.”

“Why?”

“I saw what evil did to you,” George sighs, sadness present in his eyes. “After what you did to Ranboo –” He trails off, face showing expectancy for Dream to answer without further prompt.

Dream has to think a moment, put a face to the name. When memories of the lost boy begin to flood in, he has to bite back a smile. The cruelty of his past is still ever present in his bones, regardless of his waning power. Dream had seen himself in Ranboo – how he had dedicated himself to seeking out harmony – and he had callously inhibited him from ever succeeding where he had failed. He had reeled him out again and again, giving him a taste of freedom and of progress, but had never cut the line that tied them, forcing Ranboo to always come flying back. After all, the lion liked to play with its food.

“Ranboo was sick. You can’t put that on me,” he answers finally, careful not to deny the truth of his enjoyment. Dream was many things, but he was never a liar.

“Okay, fine,” George says after a moment of contemplation, “After what you did to Tommy –”

Dream laughs haughtily. That isn’t a name easily forgotten. Dream had not always been a lion, for when one creates the stars, one need not abide by their rules. For a long while, he had been the mediator. That is, until Tommy came along.

“Do you regret it?” George asks after a moment, voice quiet again with sincerity.

 _No_.

Dream shrugs.

George raises his eyebrow and gives a curt smile.

“What?” Dream snarls harshly. He refuses to let George tell him what he had done was wrong, he had spent an eternity in an obsidian cage and that was enough.

But George doesn’t try and lecture him, knowing it would be futile. Instead, he prods, “I don’t think you do.”

“Well, it’s a good thing you don’t get a say, then,” Dream huffs, anger boiling once again. Malice coats his words as he glares at George and pushes, “You’re my creation, you play by my rules.”

Silence falls, just for a moment. The air had begun to thaw but backtracks as the words reach George’s ears.

“You think I don’t know that?” George replies quietly and through gritted teeth.

Winter wraps its harsh talons around Dream’s throat as he forces spite from his lips. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You think I asked for any of this? To be confined in this – this prison!”

“Don’t act like you know what that’s like,” Dream spits with true venom directly in George’s unwavering face. The tranquillity of the forest and George having the trees at his beck and call was nothing compared to his own damnation, divorced from his power, his world.

“I didn’t do anything to deserve this.” George’s face grows solemn once again and Dream scoffs, wanting to warn him against flipping this against him. He wants to tell George that he had fucked it all up, by never siding with him when he had needed and now, by stealing his power out from under him., but he is stopped in his tracks.

Dream can almost hear the words left unspoken, as if the trees whisper them directly in his ears.

_I regret the day you created me._

Dream ignores the whispers, mind already tainted with wrath, “And you think I deserved to be in the prison?”

“I mean –”

“No!” he explodes, veins popping. “Everything I did, I did for us! For you!” The last words falter slightly as they fall off his tongue. Dream knows it’s now George’s turn to hear the true intent.

 _And I’d do it again, ten times over_.

What he doesn’t expect, however, is George to surge forward and kiss him, hard. It lasts for only a second before unsurely takes over and he moves to immediately pull away, but Dream raises a hand to George’s hair, knotting his fingers between the strands and leaves, and draws him in deeper. He parts his lips gently and lets George’s tongue run over them. The taste of almonds and sweet berries conflict as they rush into his mouth, flavours of danger and of home, and he cannot get enough of it. It’s as if time freezes around them and nothing else matters. He doesn’t care if he’s lost all his power, for now it can be shared between them. If there’s something that years of solitude has taught him, the world is better with two.

When they break away, winter has melted. The same white flowers that had paved his descent into the forest sprout at their feet and Dream can’t help but smile. Not with power, or with superiority, but with the love of a thousand years. It’s the first time a genuine smile, one of warmth and joy, has spread across his face since he had departed from here, all those years ago.

Dream places an arm on George’s, signifying his resignation, and George smiles too. They stand together for a while, neither sure what to say, both unwilling to light a flame atop a smoking pile, afraid it will reignite. The song of the blackbird fills their silence and Dream catches a glimpse of it from the corner of his eye, high among the branches, but refuses to draw his vision away from George. He realises he never wants to spend another moment away from him throughout their shared immortality.

“Tell me,” Dream says eventually, voice quiet and without even a shard of his former fury, “About the forest.”

George’s face grows distant and solemn and he turns away. He takes a few steps into the trees, as if to walk away, and Dream opens his mouth to retract what he said.

“I had visitors at first. Sapnap would come by all the time,” George says suddenly, turning his head back. Dream can see him smiling as he reminisces, but his eyes remain forlorn. “Only for short whiles,” he continues. “The forest didn’t like his spark.”

George chuckles to himself as he extends an arm for Dream, who walks towards him and knots their palms together. Together this time, they wander through the underbrush. A path clears as they walk, mindlessly forged by George as he talks, and Dream solidifies the idea that he doesn’t mind sharing control, as long as it’s the two of them.

“He’d always come and tell me stories of the outside world, especially of Karl and Quackity. They’d even join him sometimes, and they were always so happy” George smiles as he speaks, and Dream reckons that smile could stop wars. “I always knew I’d have to watch them grow old while I stayed exactly the same, but I never thought it would be like this.”

As he says those final words, his smile drops concurrent with the temperature.

“Quackity stopped coming after a while, and neither of them told me why. I knew Karl wouldn’t be far behind because he had grown so quiet with the passing days,” he frowns. “I remember thinking that he had lost his mind and, well, I wasn’t far off.”

Dream nodded in silent confirmation, telling George he knew about Karl. He had seen him, pale and determined, when the prison had let him go. Neither had said a thing to each other, for Dream hadn’t understood why the lava that encased him had finally subsided. It wasn’t until he had reached the world beyond, and had found it empty, that he had understood.

_Karl had let him out to save George from an eternity alone._

It hits him, that Karl had been the one to reverse the effects of the poisoned apple, allowing George to reside in the forest and grow in power, instead of being forever submissive to his creator.

_Interference._

“After a while, Sapnap was the only one left, but his stories were much darker. I know he was trying his hardest to pick up the pieces Karl had left behind,” George sighs. “But I think it went deeper than that. There was something bigger at steak, but I never found out what because one day he never came back.” He pauses and his voice grows quiet when he speaks again. “It was winter for a long while after that.”

 _Silence is peaceful until it’s lonely_.

They reach a small clearing. The open expanse of green looks out of place to Dream, but George doesn’t bat an eyelid. Gnats hover above a pond, hidden in the reeds. They look down at the crystal waters as they pass, and Dream thinks it looks man made, supposes it is.

When they hit the middle of the grass, George bends down, plucks a mushroom from the soil, and pops it into his mouth with a smile.

“How’d you know that’s not poisonous?” Dream queries, thinking back to the apple. If he were George, he would be apprehensive of everything the forest produces.

George chuckles as he chews. “Because I decided it wasn’t.”

This time, it’s Dream’s turn to pluck something from the grass. He bends down and returns with a large dandelion in his grasp. He hands it to George, who accepts graciously and stares down at the yellow flower with intrigue. In his hand, the florets slowly morph into delicate seeds and Dream watches intently as George parts his lips and disperses them into the cool air.

They watch in silence as the seeds settle all around them. Dream smiles as he turns his attention back to George and plants a gentle kiss on his cheek, drawing back to watch a blush grow across his face.

“I saw him once, after everything had gone silent,” George says suddenly. “Karl, I mean. He looked fresh to the world and full of hope. It didn’t take me long to realise that he was from _before_. I don’t know if he recognised me, he never let on that he did.” Instead of frowning this time, George smiles and gestures at the field of yellow flowers that have suddenly sprung from the seeds that had landed not moments before, “He made it springtime.”

Dream draws George in and holds him in a tight embrace, “I’m sorry,” he says into the crook of his neck. Shame prevents him saying it to his face, but he hopes it’s enough. He feels George’s arms wrap around his torso in reassurance that it is.

They hold each other until the sun sets, for what significance is a day when they both have hundreds of years until their belts. Pinks and oranges accentuate George’s delicate features as Dream pulls away from the embrace with a final deep kiss. Soft lips press together as the final puzzle pieces of their existence interlock.

The row of oak that perimeter them transform into spruce guards, the same from the entrance of the forest. Despite them having walked away from where Dream had crossed the threshold, he found himself not needing to ask if the trees would lead to the same place. The laws of time and place no longer apply as George wordlessly rearranges the forest around them.

“I don’t know if I can leave,” George whispers finally.

Dream furrows his brow as he tugs on his lover’s arm. “Why?”

“The forest,” he replies, “it sustains me. Without it, I don’t know what will happen.” George pauses for a second, considers, then looks Dream in the eye. “I’m not you. I’m not a god.”

Dream wants to laugh. George is more of a god now that he would ever be again.

“You won’t know unless you try.”

George frowns. “Are you willing to lose me all over again?”

“You forget one thing,” Dream grins. “I am a god.”

 _And so are you_.

Dream takes a step towards the trees, turns, and holds out his hand for George to accept. He watches as his reassurance echoes across his face and opens out into a thankful smile. Their palms meet in a promise and they approach the boundary of the forest.

_Together._

**Author's Note:**

> The miserable bits stemming from the DofE rage? Me? Never.  
> Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed don't hesitate to ping me a message on tumblr (@/drowninginmycornflakes)  
> :)


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